The Murder Game

by Julie Apple

For fans of THE SECRET HISTORY and HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER comes an exciting new voice in suspense fiction.

Ten years working as a prosecutor have left Meredith Delay jaded and unsure of what she wants out of life. She’s good at her job, but it haunts her. Her boyfriend wants her to commit, but she keeps him at arm’s length. Then Meredith is assigned to a high-profile prosecution involving the violent murder of a fallen hockey star. At first, it appears to be just another case to work. But when her old friend Julian is accused of the murder, it takes on a whole new dimension.

Meredith, Julian, Jonathan, and Lily were a tight-knit group in law school. But now, Jonathan’s defending Julian, and Lily’s loyalties aren’t clear. And when Julian invokes a rare—and risky—defense, Meredith is forced to confront their past.

Has something they played at as students finally been brought to death?

THE MURDER GAME brilliantly explores one’s mastery of manipulation and the powers of the unconscious mind. A smart and compulsive read.

Mary Kubica

NYT bestselling author of The Good Girl

Compulsively readable, THE MURDER GAME ups the ante for psychological thrillers. Apple’s brilliant story keep readers guessing until the final pages.

Paula Treik DeBoard

author of The Drowning Girls

Fans of John Grisham and Donna Tartt will love this exploration into the history of a group of law school friends planning the perfect murder. I couldn’t put it down.

J.T. Ellison

NYT Bestselling author of Field of Graves and No One Knows

Two days later, Richard and I went to visit the scene of the crime. It was on Laval Street in the Plateau, on the block I’d always considered the prettiest, just up from Carre Saint Louis. The large, two-story stone building stood in the middle of a row of similar ones. The police tape had long been removed, and there was nothing to distinguish this house from its neighbors.

“Why the hell did he choose this house?” Richard said looking at the steep steps that led to the front door.

"I made the short walk along de Maisonneuve to the Atwater Metro, descending the stairs into the gloomy lighting. As I passed the newsstand by the ticket window, I averted my eyes from the black headlines that called out for attention. I didn’t want to know if someone new had died. I had enough deaths to deal with."

About the Author

Hey folks, it’s Julie Apple. Maybe you noticed when you were reading or browsing the cover of The Murder Game, that I’m the pseudonym for another writer, Catherine McKenzie. But I’m more than that—I’m one of the protagonists in her latest novel, Fractured.

So how did that—I—come about?

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away (okay it was Canada, Montreal specifically) (also, 2007), Catherine decided to write a novel she’d been thinking about since she attended McGill Law School in the 1990s. Sitting in her Criminal Law class, she wondered if a lawyer would have an advantage in planning a perfect murder. Could she use her knowledge of the law to do it? What if a group of friends tried it out, just for fun? A game.

But then, years later, what if that murder actually happened?

Catherine wrote that book. Though she was happy with it, she put it in a drawer because her writing career took a different turn.

Fast-forward to 2015. Catherine gets the idea for Fractured and its protagonist, Julie Apple (hey, that’s me!). She’s an author who’s written a book that’s drawn all kinds of unwanted attention to her and her past. Catherine decided to base Julie’s book on the book she had in a drawer. When Fractured was finished, Catherine thought it might be fun to take that book of the drawer and let it out in the world.

And that’s how I, and The Murder Game, was born.

Want to know more about me? Read Fractured—some crazy things happened to me ten years after the events that took place in The Murder Game. Not that The Murder Game is based on real events, or anything. Of course not.